And no, that’s not a grammatical error. Although, the band’s name is the result of a grammar argument that Cooper had with her book-publishing sister. “She’s a grammar stickler,” explains Cooper. “The name came from a disagreement we had about the use of ‘an’ before a word starting with ‘h’. It’s really dumb and boring and terrible but it was an argument that was recurring and eventually she and her boyfriend made me a sweater that said ‘an horse’ on it because every time we’d get drunk or hang out or something, we’d talk about it. When I wore the sweater, people would be like ‘Is that a band?'”
When the band formed in 2007 they needed a name and An Horse stuck. At this stage, they were still rehearsing in the independent record store, Skinny’s. Still both playing with their own bands, the duo began recording demos and giving them to friends. They were doing it for fun, says Cooper, because being a fully-fledged band is “lots of work”.
But, when a friend in a band in the ‘States invited them on tour, they agreed, despite never having played any shows. “We gave the demos to a couple of friends and we didn’t really think too much about it. At the time we were recording them, both Damon and I were kind of like ‘What are we going to do with this?’ Neither of us were interested really in releasing it,” Cooper recalls. “But we went on that tour and it was amazing; we got a record deal and we just went on tour for two years.”
Since then, Cooper has moved to Montreal, Canada; their sophomore album, Walls was written with her there and Cox still in Australia. In minus-30 degree temperatures (“you don’t wanna go outside if you don’t have to”) Cooper holed up in her Canadian apartment and wrote, sending tracks to Cox for input. “It was very, very wintery,” she remembers.
“I didn’t know a lot of people in Montreal – I had some friends, but some of them played in bands so they were often away. So I was in this French-speaking city with a couple of friends and a lot of time on my hands,” she grins.
The finished album was rehearsed when Cooper returned to Melbourne for six weeks in early 2010 and recorded in Vancouver, Canada, a few months later. Unlike their debut album, Rearrange Beds, which was made of mostly pre-written demo tracks and completed with songs written at the order of their record company, Walls was deliberately crafted and laboured over. “We spent a good 18 months on it,” she says. “It’s anatomically more interesting and we spent a month in the studio making it, whereas with Rearrange Beds we spent maybe 10 days making it. So I think it’s just better.”
Her new life in Canada was an influential inspiration for Cooper’s writing. “The reason I moved there was because we were touring over here a lot and I had friends in Montreal, very good friends, and one in particular was like ‘You should move here’. It’s very cheap rent and a very nice place to live,” she explains. “Also, I wanted to live somewhere that was different to Brisbane. Brisbane is beautiful, I love it, it’s sunny every day and it’s amazing; but I wanted to be affected by my surroundings.”
This includes speaking French. “Everyone speaks English but it’s a second language,” Copper explains. So how is her French progressing? “It’s not very good,” she laughs. “Well, I would say that it’s really good… but then I have a French girlfriend and she’s like ‘it sounds like you’re deaf when you speak French’. So, it’s not too good,” she sighs. “It’s a serious blow to my self-esteem when I practice with her. She’s just like ‘Oh my God. What’s wrong with you and why can’t you remember anything?!’ and I’m like ‘We’re not all bilingual, we’re not all that lucky,’ ” she laughs.